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5 Ways Xerox CEO John Visentin Is Reshaping The Company

While he’s only been on the job for seven months, John Visentin has shown he is not afraid to shape the American icon as he sees fit, with a relentless pace of internal consolidation and streamlining which he told employees is designed to make Xerox a “tech powerhouse.”

About this time last year the future for Xerox seemed set. A $6.1 billion deal with Fujifilm was announced by then-CEO Jeff Jacobson, under which Xerox would inherit all of Fuji Xerox, the 60-year- old Asian arm of its copier empire, but cede overall control to Tokyo.

Then a proxy war with Xerox’s two largest shareholders, Carl Icahn and Darwin Deason, erupted and ensuing legal fights scrapped the deal, the CEO, and board.

Now, new CEO John Visentin, a long-time Icahn loyalist who took over the company in May, has outlined his vision on where he wants to take Xerox in 2019. On Dec. 17, he sent an internal email that described a number of structural and personnel changes he had made to streamline the company, with the stated goal of becoming a “tech powerhouse.”

From go-to market to R&D and supply, almost no part of Xerox has been untouched by his vision.

“To become a tech powerhouse, we must continue to adapt to the changing marketplace and evolving customer needs,” Visentin wrote. “We will do this by having a laser focus on our four strategic priorities: driving revenue, optimizing and simplifying our business, re-energizing our innovation engine and focusing on cash flow and increasing capital returns.”